


taking care

by justsomejerk



Series: Kyle Valenti Appreciation Week 2019 [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Baths and Massages and Good Food, F/F/M, Fluff, Good Guy Kyle Valenti, Hurt/Comfort, Maria and Isobel are Not Related, Mentions of Death, Multi, OT3, Written Pre-S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomejerk/pseuds/justsomejerk
Summary: Kyle has a hard few days at work and Isobel and Maria take care of him.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Isabel Evans/Kyle Valenti, Maria DeLuca/Isobel Evans/Kyle Valenti
Series: Kyle Valenti Appreciation Week 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557277
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	taking care

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 2 of Kyle Valenti Appreciation Week. 
> 
> Fic prompt: Long/Stressful Day at Work/How to Unwind
> 
> I've been wanting to try my hand at exploring an OT3 dynamic for awhile now, so this is me dipping my toe in.

Thirty-two hours. That’s how long he’s been at the hospital. During his eighteenth hour, a bus crashed just outside the town limits. **  
**

Despite the best efforts of his team, not everyone survived. After telling the third set of parents their child was dead, Kyle trudged out of the hospital and leaned back against the headrest of his car, letting himself take a few moments to breathe before driving home. 

It was the worst day he’d endured as a surgeon since the school shooting back in Idaho. 

He’d already texted his girlfriends to explain, knowing they’d understand that he just wasn’t up for their plan to have a midnight picnic out in the desert. All he could think about was crawling into bed between them and feeling their arms close around him protectively.

When he dragged himself through the front door of his condo, he was surprised to smell something familiar and hear bustling from the kitchen around the corner. 

In a split second, Isobel appeared around the corner and approached him slowly. “Hey, baby.” She said it softly, her expression unusually gentle. She reached her arm out and took his hand, tugging him along into the kitchen, where Maria was setting what looked to be his mother’s carne asada out on plates. She paused only to give him a brief sweet smile, understanding in her eyes. He looked between the two of them. Maybe it was just exhaustion, but the kitchen lights overhead were shining down on them both in such a way that Maria’s chestnut curls and Isobel’s icy blonde locks shone with perfect angelic halos. 

Isobel guided him to the small dining table and after a quick kiss to his forehead, nudged him down into a seated position. He went easily under her guidance, barely steady on his feet anyway. 

They didn’t make much conversation during dinner. They’d only been together for a few months, but Maria and Isobel already knew that after losses at work, he needed time to absorb it all before talking.

But as soon as he was finished and set down his utensils with a sigh that carried hints of satisfaction and bone-deep exhaustion, Maria reached out to squeeze his hand. "Isobel's gonna take care of you while I clean up, okay?" Focusing was difficult when he was this tired and weary, but Maria's crinkled eyes brought him back to himself. He gave a small nod. Before clearing the plates, she slid a palm up and down his clothed back, and he felt himself push back into her touch. 

Then Isobel took over, gently pulling him up from his seat and, with a hand on the small of his back, led him into the bathroom. That was the room that convinced him to buy this condo - it was the only place he'd found with a freestanding bathtub. His intern year taught him the value of using a spare hour or two to sink into a pool of water and forget himself for a few brief moments. 

Tonight, the room was lit only by candles - a stark contrast to the fluorescence of operating rooms - and the soft lighting was easy on his tired eyes. She had him sit on the closed toilet seat as she set to work filling up the bathtub. She pulled colourful bottles Kyle knew he didn't buy from his cabinet and poured them into the water, and soon the soothing scent of lavender was filling his nostrils. He sagged, closed his eyes and let himself be surrounded by the smell, losing track of time completely. 

When Isobel began squeezing his shoulders, he opened his eyes to find the bathtub almost full and her smiling down at him tenderly. She closed her fingers around the fabric of his charcoal-gray henley and he briefly nodded, lifting his arms so she could undress him. 

They barely spoke as she set to work, though she murmured a command for him to stand up once his shirt was carefully placed on the counter. He complied automatically, her slender hands going to his belt buckle. 

As she undressed him, her fingers sometimes lingered along his arms and hips and thighs, but they both knew they were intended as comforting touches only. Isobel liked to softly reprimand Kyle and Maria both from time to time for spending too much time taking care of others while neglecting themselves, and it resulted in her being especially affectionate with them both in private. 

When Maria padded into the room, wearing only a thin tank top and a pair of Kyle's college sweatpants rolled up to her knees, Isobel was bent over at his feet, folding up his jeans and boxers after he'd stepped out of them for her. Getting food into his system had livened him up slightly - though still tired, he was now aware enough to appreciate the effort his girlfriends were putting into easing him out of the horrors of his day and into the comforts of the unconventional home they were creating together. 

He felt himself smirking as Isobel straightened again in front of him, Maria moving in closer. “You’re being... sweet. What’s going on here, blondie?” His eyes are narrowed, amused suspicion in his voice. 

The concern that had been hiding as a ghost behind her loving expression fell away as she became indignant. “I can be sweet. I _am_ sweet!”

Maria caught Kyle's eye and they shared a fond laugh. She leaned into Isobel's body, pushing her nose up into the cradle of her neck and left a soft kiss there. “Tough love has always been more your territory, Is. The sweetness will take some getting used to.”

Isobel pouted briefly before Maria reached for Kyle and they both nudged him into the bath. Wasps of steam filled the tiny warm room as he submerged himself, adjusting his body to find a comfortable position. He noted the way the candlelight played off the filmy bubbles floating on the surface, a soft iridescent sheen coming off the water. Maria tilted her head and watched him close his eyes. She moved around to the head of the tub and he felt her place a bath pillow behind his head. Soon she pushed her deft fingers into his hair and began massaging his scalp. Losing himself to the gentle rhythm and attention, Kyle let out a long low moan and dipped a little lower in the water.

She kept at it long after he’d sunk into a half-sleep state. Even at the edge of consciousness, feeling her hands working through his hair and easing the tension gathered at his temples and the base of his neck, he smiled. 

He hadn’t noticed Isobel had ducked out of the room until he lazily opened his eyes, Maria’s hands having retreated from his scalp. He was now in a contented daze, his day forgotten until the morning when he knows he will have to remember and start over again. 

But for now, all he knows is Maria and Isobel and their gentle hands.

In his stupor, he stumbled on his way out of the bath. Standing in front of him, Maria placed one hand on his chest to keep him upright, then allowed that hand to drift down as she took his hips firmly in each palm, holding him still and placing soft kisses to his face and neck as Isobel ran a thick warm towel over every part of his body. She finished off by wrapping him up in the bright red fleece bathrobe he’d stolen from Maria’s apartment the morning after they’d finally slept together for the first time.

They made their way to the bedroom, where crisp white sheets replaced the worn navy ones he routinely used and the blankets were carefully folded at the end of the bed. He could tell Isobel had taken care of the bed from the precise look of the hospital corners. 

Soon they had him laid out on his stomach and Isobel was spreading massage oil down his back with her palms kneading along his shoulder blades. She’d changed into a peach-coloured silk lingerie set and perched herself on top of him, knees on either side of his thighs, to get the proper leverage for digging into the worst aches in his lower back, and he revelled in the sensation of the thin silk against the skin of his thighs. 

Maria’s speciality was hand and foot massage, and her thumb was rubbing into his palm at just the perfect angle to pull a loud blissful groan out of him. If he weren’t lost in a contented trance and caged in by his beautiful girlfriends, he might have been embarrassed at the sounds he continued to make until their hands became lighter on his skin and he found himself drifting away.

*

As quickly as he’d crashed, he was startled awake. He couldn’t remember having a dream, but he suspected he’d relived the surgeries that failed to save the kids on his operating table today.

He was on his back and Isobel was sound asleep, her head hovering next to his on the pillow, close enough that he felt her warm rhythmic breaths on his ear. She had an arm lying over his on his chest, covering his hand with her own even in sleep. Maria was curled up on his other side, an arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder. 

“Go on.” Maria’s whisper wasn’t altogether a surprise; her schedule at the bar meant she and Kyle shared an erratic sleep schedule, so they’ve grown accustomed to having middle-of-the-night talks with Isobel’s steady breathing as their calming background noise. She shifted to look at him as she stroked his shoulder, his sight adjusting to the dark enough to see her form and the slight shimmer of her eyes. “I left blankets and a pillow out there, and Iz left you something on the TV.”

Kyle tilted his chin down and just stared at her for a moment, awed by the thoughtfulness they’d put into tonight. He’d only mentioned in passing a couple times that he never sleeps the whole night after a day like this and prefers ending up on the couch.

“You’re incredible. Both of you. I don’t know what I did to deserve any of this...” He let his low murmur trail off, shaking his head as he slowly lifted Isobel’s arm and pulled away from her to push off the bed.

Maria pulled herself up, limbs loose from sleep, to give him room and she looked up at him with a melancholy smile and cups his face with one hand. “You were _you_ , Kyle. That’s all. That’s what you did to deserve it.”

He heard a soft rustling from behind him and Isobel’s groggy voice comes through the darkness: “Go fall asleep watching terrible TV, baby. When you wake up, we’ll have brunch ready for you.”

Maria giggled softly and raised herself on her toes to kiss Kyle’s forehead and softly shoved him out the bedroom door. He paused before shutting the door behind him and watched Maria settle back into bed, her back against Isobel’s chest, pulling the covers up to their shoulders and Isobel sighing in contentment as she buried her face in Maria’s hair and pulled her in tightly. Isobel was a surprisingly needy cuddler, something both Kyle and Maria secretly loved.

He found his favourite checkered blanket on the couch with a pillow in a matching pillowcase and flopped down, humming to himself. His 3am wakeups have always been one of the worst parts of his chosen career as a surgeon, mostly because he was usually waking up alone and circling back over all the moments when he could have done something differently and his patient could have lived. 

But tonight he didn’t wake up alone. He woke up with Maria and Isobel clutching him, keeping him safe from his darkest thoughts. That difference means finding himself on the couch alone in the middle of the night as he’s done for years is more a comfort now than a tired sad routine. 

He grabbed the remote where it was left on the pillow and clicked on the TV to find what Isobel left him - a queue of a dozen of his all-time favourite Real Housewives episodes. He let his head fall onto the lavender-scented pillow and chuckled softly to himself.

He hasn’t said it yet, but he’s in love with them. 

When he curled up under the heavy blanket Maria had left him and turned on his Bravo marathon at low volume care of Isobel, he decided it’s time he said it.


End file.
